23/11/2022
I painted this, inspired by one beautiful summer day in beloved Greece. Technically, it was quite a challenge. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to make beautiful abstract marks and obtain interesting edges in digital painting. This happens because digital brushes are stamps, repeating the same mark over and over. But this lack of variation also allows for the most precise control, because we are in a medium where the little tip of your pen can make marks of 1 pixel or as big as a house, resulting in a lot of confusion for the brain. Adding unpredictable textures on top of this would only complicate things even further. Texture and edges always come last, when we already know things are working.
So the only way I could've achieved this look was to first roughly paint by hand with the simplest brushes, so I can have a structure underneath. And then use different Photoshop Mixer brushes to stamp, not paint (press the pen against the tablet surface once and then lift) each mark on a new layer. I adjusted the rough results that I liked, and then merged them with the whole painting layer, or used Undo if I did not like the mark. This was done over and over again, until I got the impression I was going for without the use of rendering, just looking at the canvas, judging what value and color I would need, and letting the mark happen by itself, only to adjust it later.
This is, of course, a long process of (controlled but still) happy accidents. Since wild textures are always unpredictable, all paintings involving such techniques are happy accidents. There is no way to 100% predict a wild texture mark, and that is the beauty of it. However, all happy accidents are happening upon a clear structure underneath, an underdrawing, and that is 100% controlled. This structure is the real MVP of the painting. Always.
You can find this print on my InPrnt store, along with many others (link in bio), at 40% off from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. These are gallery-quality giclée art prints on 100% cotton rag archival paper, printed with archival inks. Real quality stuff, have a look!
Do you miss summer? Have you ever been to Greece? Let me know in the comments.